{"id":2835,"date":"2020-07-21T16:16:00","date_gmt":"2020-07-21T04:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/?p=2835"},"modified":"2025-08-14T16:21:57","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T04:21:57","slug":"rare-mistletoe-come-back-in-hawkes-bay-back-blocks-astonishes-conservationists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/rare-mistletoe-come-back-in-hawkes-bay-back-blocks-astonishes-conservationists\/","title":{"rendered":"Rare mistletoe come-back in Hawke\u2019s Bay back-blocks astonishes conservationists."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An \u2018at risk\u2019 species of mistletoe appears to be staging a remarkable come-back in parts of a Hawke\u2019s Bay forest following a highly successful possum eradication programme.<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

More than 200 specimens of yellow mistletoe (Alepis flavida), known as pirita or piriraki in te reo M\u0101ori, have been found over the past year by the Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust on its property in the Maungataniwha Native Forest, adjacent to Te Urewera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The parasitic species has leap-frogged from being unrecorded in the forest to having 21 plants seen within one host tree alone. On a single day in February this year Trust volunteers and staff found 109 new plants on 49 host trees, a record daily tally for the area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust manager Pete Shaw said he was \u201cstaggered\u201d by the finds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the most remarkable change in the forest we\u2019ve seen for years,\u201d Mr Shaw said. \u201cIt\u2019s notable that the recovery is not obvious across the entire forest, though, so it\u2019s possible that we\u2019ve stumbled across one or two hot-spots where this species wasn\u2019t entirely wiped out by possum before we started our work here in 2006.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Trust\u2019s possum eradication work in the Maungataniwha Native Forest has been so successful that over the past year any possum seen at night was an exceptional event to be commented on. Determined trapping and targeting of the few remaining animals by Trust staffer Barry Crene has helped keep the number of these pests low.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBarry\u2019s got it to the point now that every possum killed at this stage could mean keeping the lid on the possum numbers in this forest for future years,\u201d Mr Shaw said. \u201cIt\u2019s vital for the health of our forest that we are able to do this.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The nearby Department of Conservation-administered Boundary Stream Mainland Island also experienced a rapid recovery of yellow mistletoe following possum control there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pattern of the plant\u2019s recovery at Maungataniwha should continue in future years if possum control continues, the Trust says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe\u2019re hoping that yellow mistletoe may be reaching a critical mass that could result in lots of available seed being flown by birds, and a much faster recovery into the future,\u201d Mr Shaw said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All yellow mistletoe found at Maungataniwha so far have been hosted on red beech.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other species of mistletoe are also being discovered in increasing numbers at Maungataniwha. These include scarlet mistletoe (Peraxilla colensoi) and red mistletoe (Peraxilla tetrapetala).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

About the Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Forest Lifeforce Restoration Trust was established in 2006 to provide direction and funding for the restoration of threatened species of fauna and flora, and to restore the ngahere mauri (forest lifeforce) in native forests within the Central North Island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It runs eight main regeneration and restoration projects, involving native New Zealand flora and fauna, on three properties in the central North Island. It also owns a property in the South Island\u2019s Fiordland National Park.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An \u2018at risk\u2019 species of mistletoe appears to be staging a remarkable come-back in parts of a Hawke\u2019s Bay forest following a highly successful possum eradication programme. More than 200 specimens of yellow mistletoe (Alepis flavida), known as pirita or piriraki in te reo M\u0101ori, have been found over the past year by the Forest […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"set","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2835"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2836,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2835\/revisions\/2836"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/saje.nz\/forest\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}